Tenth cycle rough diamond sales for 2016 significantly higher than last year

The De Beers Group of Companies today announced the value of rough diamond sales for the tenth sales cycleof 2016.

The provisional sales values for cycle 10, which include global sightholder sales and auction sales, is $418 million (£329 million). This figure represents sales as of 12 December 2016, and is £58 million lower than the actual ninth cycle sales value of 2016, which was $476 million (£374 million).

De Beers Group chief executive officer, Bruce Cleaver, says: “We continued to see good demand for De Beers rough diamonds in our latest sales cycle. While the treade in lower value rough diamonds is experiencing a temporary slowdown as a result of the demonetisation programme in India, demand across the rest od the product mix continued to be healthy and overall sales remained in line with seasonal expectations.

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“Pleasingly, sales were also significantly higher than those for the equivalent cycle in 2015.”